A Simple Monday

I spent the morning writing an article about Sunday night's Elly nominations, for the theater awards that will be given out in September. It involved several phone calls and e-mails to contact people, but I think I'm in good shape to send the article tomorrow mid-day.

The city finally came out to trim the dead branches off of our eucalyptus tree around noon. The tree belongs to the city, so they are responsible for keeing it trimmed. They got it done in no time and fed the whole thing into the mulching machine.

Then, after showing Jeri the rest of our China Pictures, Walt presented her with the t-shirt he had bought for her at the Beijing Opea. He was so thrilled when he found that shirt!

At 3:30, we finally got on the road, driving toward San Ramon (which is closer to San Francisco) to have lunch at Char and Mike's daughter Jenny's house, along with daughters Tavie and Dana as well. It was like a reunion of the "girls" who went on the France/Italy trip two years ago. I just love watching all of those kids talking with each other.

Jenny's dog Nikki seemed unimpressed to have us there.

We had such a fun evening, laughing, everybody talking at once, the noise level rising higher and higher. Jenny & Dave's daughter had made a cake for dessert, and we pretended Ned was there so we could give it to him for his upcoming birthday this week.

Finally, around 10 p.m., we had to drag ourselves away, or nobody would be fit to drive home. I just love evenings like this. Best. ever.

(We also may have decided where to take our cruise next year...but more of that when it's definite)